These islands are probably much resorted to by turtles, as they were daily seen swimming about, and one was caught on shore during our stay by a party of natives.

The variety of fishes caught at this anchorage was considerable, and furnished many additions to the ichthyological collection, to which the paucity of other objects in zoology for some time back enabled me to bestow much attention.* Among the genera most remarkable for singularity of form and brilliancy of colouring I may mention Holocentrum, five kinds of which were procured here, one brilliantly coloured with blue and silver, and the remainder more or less of a bright scarlet.
(*Footnote.

Besides many kinds preserved in spirits, which have not yet been examined, my collection contained stuffed specimens of about forty species of Louisiade fishes.

These, I have been informed by Sir John Richardson, have nearly all been previously described from other parts of Oceania, the Indian Ocean, and the China Sea.

The family Sparidae is that best represented in the Louisiade Archipelago so far as I could judge--three species of Pentapus numerically more than equal all the rest, and the next commonest fish is Diacope octo-lineata.) SHELLS AND HERMIT-CRABS.
The landshells appear here to be limited to a solitary Helicina, found on the leaves and trunks of trees; and the trifling amount of rise and fall of tide, not exceeding three feet, prevented any search for marine species upon the reef.